March 24th, 2012 on the National Mall in Washington D.C. a group of the single most unreasonable people in the world will gather ironically under the banner “Reason Rally”. They assert that it is unreasonable to believe in a God. It is, however, a blessing for their movement that they are only spending one day together. The reason I assert this is that it is easy to proclaim what we do not believe in; it is far harder to affirm what we do believe in.
I offer an example to illustrate this principle. The Republic held most of Spain after a partially successful coup de taunt by Franco and the “Fascists” or “Nationalists” against the second Spanish Republic in mid-July 1936 as the Spanish Civil War began. Four months into 1937, less than one year later, the Republicans already had infighting amongst its ranks; primarily between the Socialists, the Communists, and the Anarchists with conflict down the line among Stalinists, Trotskyites, and Leninists, and the UGT and the CNT and between Ernest Hemmingway and George Orwell (that last one is only my assertion). That leaves very few people who were not infighting on the Republican side. The Nationalists beat the Republicans quickly as a result.
I had been a self styled Anarchist trying to discuss politics and philosophy in my twenties and I found much the same thing. Once you get past the talking point “No Gods, No Masters!” The discussion dissolves quickly into passions. I quote Proudhon’s work “What is Property” (1840), “Property is Theft!” and my conversational ally turned enemy, frienemy, turns out to be only a Libertarian, “Hands off my property!” He declares. Another is a Communist who finds a strong central government and vanguard is necessary at least for a time, while we weed out and reeducate the undesirables I suppose. Add a couple cases of Grainbelt and one sees how unruly even a small Socialist experiment called a “party” can become. Many it appears do not have faith in Anarcho-Syndicalism, poor Buenaventura Durutti. He said, “There are only two roads, victory for the working class, freedom, or victory for the fascists which means tyranny. Both combatants know what’s in store for the loser.” Knowing all this the Fascists won handily due especially to the Republicans inability to come to terms.
For all the talk of open minded relativism people tend to be fairly concrete thinkers. The reason for this maybe that the more we open ourselves up the more likely we are to find we are wrong. Atheists do not want to be wrong.
The reason for this is simple enough and really has little to do with God; the reason is personality. One creates an image of oneself which one cannot see altered. So this does have something to do with God after all; for the individual has sought to fashion oneself as one’s own idol. This is a sin against the first commandment and this maybe the very reason why it is the first commandment.
When a Christian acts as he or she ought God is put first above ourselves. This creates a situation of self denial which allows humans to be optimally social. Without a level of self denial there is no service, no kindness, no empathy, and no love.
Atheists do not wish to be wrong and Christians must not fall into that trap because their duty is love. It is the atheist’s duty to question truth and call that process reason. It is the Christian’s duty to act out of the truth of Christ.
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you.” (John 13:34) “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.” (John 15:9)
Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves. Fides et Ratio September 15, 1998, Pope John Paul II
Atheism is a recipe for sophism. Sophism is a recipe for intolerance, as we see above in the Spanish Civil War example. What this intolerance breeds is a situation in which the least ethical, least empathetic, and least loving rise to prominence.
Dare I say that this is what one sees in the present culture as secular humanism advances further and further into our society. So have fun at the reason rally; but you would be a fool to expect this rally to be the seed of some atheistic utopia of the future. That is simply not in atheism’s nature.
The truth about oneself, if one understands that there is a truth then they can become a whole and wholly integrated individual i.e. they have integrity. When one lacks a single truth and the integrity of that truth, one bases one’s life upon opinion and how rational is that?
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